


Of Dandelions That Weep

by amyeonhaseyo



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Doctor!Junmyeon, Gore, Guns, M/M, This Does Not End Well, Very late birthday fic, Violence, don't get a mafioso boyfriend, gangster!Chanyeol, got some torture scenes, junmyeon 2020 birthday fic, mafia!au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:47:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24822580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyeonhaseyo/pseuds/amyeonhaseyo
Summary: Someone like Junmyeon was too good for Chanyeol’s world.
Relationships: Kim Junmyeon | Suho & Park Chanyeol, Kim Junmyeon | Suho/Park Chanyeol
Comments: 48
Kudos: 112





	Of Dandelions That Weep

Someone like Junmyeon was too good for Chanyeol’s world.

Chanyeol knew that—had known it even the first time they’d met.

It wasn’t exactly the best in terms of first meetings, with Chanyeol barely keeping his guts inside his body—hand desperately pressing on the large gash on his abdomen as he stumbled inside Happy Pasture Clinic.

All gangs who had a smart enough leader knew they had to have a doctor on call due to the bloody nature of their business. Chanyeol had Lay—who was actually a nurse, but he did a marvelous job nonetheless—but Lay was back at the house, a half-hour’s drive away. And Chanyeol was alone after being separated from everybody amid the chaos, in no state to drive himself home. He would die long before then.

Perhaps chancing upon this neighborhood was a blessing in disguise.

He barely read the sign at the door, only taking note that it was a clinic, before he uses the last of his strength to push himself inside.

He wakes to a pastel blue ceiling and carrot print sheets. A man in a knit sweater is slumped on a nearby armchair, his legs sprawled out to the floor and arms hanging off of the armrest like a doll whose strings had been cut. A gentle snore is flowing out from his bowed head. Chanyeol winced at how the man slept, his neck bent at an angle that Chanyeol was sure would hurt once the man woke up.

Chanyeol tries to sit up, only to yelp as his stomach explodes in pain. The noise wakes his companion.

The man jumps up, going over to patient’s side in an instant.

“You’ll reopen your wound if you keep moving,” he reprimands in a hoarse but firm voice. “Stay still, please.”

Chanyeol’s vision clears enough for him to see the man’s face clearly. He looked positively haggard, with bags underneath his eyes, his long black hair shiny with grease, his nose bearing marks—probably from wearing his glasses for too long, his skin positively ashen. But even then, Chanyeol thought that this was the most beautiful man he had ever seen.

“Who are you?” he asks.

“Kim Junmyeon, general surgeon,” the man answers as he adjusts the IV drip. He sees Chanyeol staring and gives him a smile. “You’re currently in my house. You stumbled into my clinic yesterday night with your belly gaping open. You’re lucky I had an emergency bag of blood on hand.”

Chanyeol’s hand automatically pats over his abdomen, now with the unmistakable hardness of bandages over it.

“I couldn’t leave you downstairs at the clinic,” the doctor continues. “I have a nurse who comes in everyday. I figured you didn’t, ah, want too many people to see you.”

The gangster could only blink at the barrage of information. “You had enough sense to know that I’m shady but not to throw me out your clinic? That’s quite reckless, doctor. What if I didn’t like you knowing my face either? I could have you killed.”

Junmyeon seems to pause at that before shrugging his shoulders. “You’re not the first to come here with suspicious wounds, you know,” he tells him. “In case you hadn’t noticed, this isn’t exactly a nice neighborhood. I get people like you from time to time. Aside from my duty as a doctor to give medical assistance to anyone regardless of their identity, I am also in it because your lot tend to pay much higher than the average patient.”

“Quite a gamble you’re taking with your life there, Doc.”

“It’s a hard life for everybody here. You gotta do what you gotta do.”

The doctor’s lips curl slightly into a compliant smile, making the patient squirm uncomfortably.

What was this, this almost cheerful air that the doctor had about him? Did he not realize exactly how dangerous Chanyeol was? This Kim Junmyeon should have been trembling, shouldn’t have been able to meet Chanyeol’s eyes. And yet there he was, adjusting the blanket over the gangster’s feet like he was just tending to any other patient.

(In a way, it was refreshing.)

Chanyeol borrows the doctor’s phone afterwards to contact his men. He instantly notes how outdated and worn-looking the phone was. He wonders how little Junmyeon’s income must be, for him to be using such an old phone. He was a doctor, wasn’t he? Even in a dicey neighborhood, he should be making enough to at least afford himself a nice phone.

A black car soon pulls up infront of the clinic. The window to the driver’s seat pulls down to reveal a raven-haired youth.

“Hyung,” he says as he exits the car. “Why didn’t you call? We’ve been looking for you since yesterday. Kai is crying back home coz he thinks you’re dead.”

“Sorry Sehun, I was busy trying not to die from getting gutted,” Chanyeol replies drily. A wave of nausea hits him and he stumbles, but the trusty hold of Sehun at his side keeps him from falling.

It was only then that Chanyeol realized that it was already dark out. A full day had passed? He grits his teeth in displeasure. A whole day wasted. The missed missions alone would cost them millions of won. Whoever it had been that messed with him last night… they will pay literally and figuratively. He would make sure of that.

But that also meant…

“Wait!”

The yell stops Sehun and Chanyeol on their tracks, and they watch as the doctor runs out from the clinic, glasses askew and paper bag in hand.

“Pain meds and antibiotics,” he tells Sehun, slightly out of breath. “I wrote down the instructions inside. And don’t let him move for the next two weeks. He needs longer than that to recover, but I’m guessing he won’t follow my instructions anyway so even just for two weeks? If you could minimize his movement for that long, at least then his life won’t be in danger.”

Sehun nods and takes the paper bag. With a parting smile, the doctor makes his way back inside.

“Someone you know, hyung?”Sehun asks Chanyeol on the drive home.

“No.”

“Huh. Seemed friendly.”

Chanyeol only grunts in reply. It was hardly anything special. Junmyeon only did his part as a doctor, didn’t he? And Chanyeol was going to pay him generously for that. But the image of the doctor tending to him all by himself for a whole day, probably foregoing meals and sleep in order to do so… it made Chanyeol’s chest feel heavy. It was almost like he felt guilty for having received such care.

The next morning a package arrives at Happy Pasture Clinic. Junmyeon frowns at the box. It had no information about the sender. It only said “To Kim Junmyeon, general surgeon” on the top, and nothing else.

He opens the box and is greeted by a thick wad of cash and a brand new smartphone.

He taps the phone and it comes to life. There was only one registered contact. He didn’t recognize the name, but somehow Junmyeon knew who it was. He smiles fondly at the paper bills, easily thrice the amount he would have charged for the surgery.

 _So his name was Chanyeol_ …

He puts the box down on his table and takes the phone to type in a message.

From: _Doc_

Thank you. :)

Chanyeol reads the two-word message and drives away.

They say one should never feed strays, because strays tend to come back if they’ve been fed once.

But Chanyeol leads a pack of strays, and he knows good service when he sees it. Or so he tells himself as he drags Chen along to Happy Pasture Clinic.

“You’re back.”

Junmyeon does not seem surprised. His eyes drift from Chanyeol’s to Chen’s slumped form and he snaps into his role.

“To the back, there’s a bed,” he instructs. He quickly closes the door to the clinic, locking it and pulling the blinds down.

Chanyeol gives a terse nod and half pulls, half lifts his wounded friend with him.

“How bad?” Junmyeon asks.

“Just a shot to the side, shouldn’t be serious.”

(Lay could have dealt with it easily.)

“You wouldn’t be saying that if it were you, you bastard,” Chen groans with a weak voice.

“Shut up Chen, you’ve had worse than this.”

“Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt like hell! This is all your fault, I _told_ you not to mess with the Kims.”

“They trashed my car, I had to trash three of theirs back.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, you and that stupid ‘threefold’ rule of yours—“

The sentence ends in a yelp as Chanyeol not so gently drops Chen on the bed. He turns to Junmyeon, who had snapped on a mask and gloves in the meantime, eyes curling in amusement.

“Take care of this whining bitch, will you?” he asks crudely, earning a kick to the waist.

Junmyeon laughs softly as he pushes himself between the two thugs and gets to work.

Once becomes twice, and twice becomes at least once a week. Happy Pasture Clinic becomes Chanyeol’s gang’s unofficial treatment place. Junmyeon lets go of his nurse and hires Lay in her place, making it much easier for them all. From cuts to gunshots to even the everyday flu—he’s become the group’s go-to for all health problems.

Chanyeol made sure to compensate the doctor well. A box always appeared at the clinic’s doorstep the following day, filled with more than enough cash to fit the bill. He would always wait for the bell of his phone, signaling the doctor’s two-word message, before he drove away.

It’s raining the first time Chanyeol visits Junmyeon without an excuse.

The door to the clinic is locked and the lights were off.

Oh, Chanyeol thinks as he bumps his head on the glass. They’re closed.

He bites his lip and stops himself from banging on the door. The doctor probably had another exhausting day. He shouldn’t add to that.

He sits on the steps, indifferent to the rain that fell around him. He takes his pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. It’s drenched and so is his lighter.

He looks at them tiredly, briefly considers hurling them. But that would entail exerting effort and energy that he just didn’t have enough of at the moment. He presses his palms to his eyes just as the first tear falls, and he finally frees the sobs that were suffocating his chest.

He doesn’t hear the door open, or the footsteps that lead to him.

“I thought I heard your car pull up,” says a voice, as warm as the towel that comes to shelter Chanyeol from the rain. “You shouldn’t be out here.”

_You shouldn’t be crying out here_.

“I’m sorry. This was the only place I could think of.”

Junmyeon holds Chanyeol securely by the waist as he brings them both inside, gently whispering words of encouragement everytime the taller stumbled on his steps and sobbed a little harder each time.

“I’m tired,” Chanyeol whispers once he’s calmed down. He’s in Junmyeon’s living room, in Junmyeon’s couch, in Junmyeon’s too-small fleece pajamas.

Tired of the violence, tired of the carnage, tired of the smell of gunpowder on his hands. He’s so sick of it all, but he can’t say the words out loud, in fear that they would scare the doctor away.

His efforts are in vain, it seems, for when he catches Junmyeon’s eyes all he could see was the gentle regard of understanding.

The doctor passes him a steaming cup of tea, and sits beside him with his own.

Chanyeol watches as he grabs for the remote control and turns the tv on with it.

“What did you like watching as a kid,” Junmyeon asks him.

The gangster looks at him, confused.

“Your favorite movie,” Junmyeon insists. “Or tv show! Anything.”

Chanyeol racks his brain. He never got to watch much tv as a kid. “The Chronicles of Narnia,” he mumbles.

The doctor nods with a smile. “Good choice.”

The familiar opening scene plays, and Chanyeol is engulfed in a wave of nostalgia.

“They say that watching your favorite movies can be therapeutic for you,” Junmyeon explains in a low voice. “I don’t know about that, but I do love this movie and it’s never a bad time to watch it, don’t you think?”

The gangster does not answer, only proceeds to take a sip of his tea. He grimaces at the taste. “This is too damn sweet,” he grouches.

“Aw, shut up. Tea has to be sweet or else it’ll taste like horseshit.”

Chanyeol promptly chokes on his drink.

“What, you think doctors don’t curse?” Junmyeon asks teasingly as the other thumped his own chest while coughing.

“I snorted tea up my nose, please stop talking.”

The doctor guffaws, and the sound of it has Chanyeol lips tug up into a begrudging smile.

It becomes a habit after that, seeking comfort in Junmyeon.

Chanyeol had been embarrassed after that first time, but Junmyeon never acted differently, never made him feel like he was being judged. Whether he visited to get treated after a gory scuffle or came subdued and in need of company, Junmyeon always welcomed him—eyes soft and warm and silently understanding. They always sat in Junmyeon’s couch afterwards, sipping overly-sweetened tea while an old movie played in the background.

It was unbelievably ordinary. And yet, it was exactly what Chanyeol needed.

“Why are you so poor,” Chanyeol asks one time. He’d been thumbing through an ancient health magazine. Everything in Junmyeon’s clinic was old, even the magazines and flyers. “You’re a doctor, you get patients everyday, you even got my group under your care. That should make you more than rich enough to afford a better building, a better neighborhood.”

“Student loans,” Junmyeon replies with an unhappy grimace as he bandages Sehun’s head. “And a bed-ridden mom’s medical bills. She’s been in the hospital for so long, I’ll probably have to work till my forties to pay for it. I was barely keeping myself afloat as it was, but with you guys coming in from time to time I can at least afford better heating now.”

Chanyeol almost feels guilty at the revelation, like he’s overstepped his boundaries. “Oh… sorry to hear that.”

“It’s fine. Like I said, I’m getting by.” He gives Sehun’s bandage another check and gestures for the patient to lie down. “Besides, it’s not all hopeless for me, you know? I still think that someday soon, I’ll be living the dream.”

Chanyeol tosses the magazine back on the desk. “’The dream’?”

“Oh, nothing big,” Junmyeon answers. “I wanna live in one of those islands, the quiet ones with no more than a thousand people in it, you know? Gonna set up a clinic there and tend to people and the scariest case I’ll have will be a grumpy old man with arthritis. Be nice not to see so much blood. And then my house will be next door, it’ll have a patio and a rocking chair out front, so Mom can sit outside and greet people passing by. She’d like that.”

Chanyeol can see the picture in his head, can almost feel the coziness of that peaceful life painted out by Junmyeon’s soft voice. He sighs inwardly, a little forlorn. Someone like Chanyeol had no place in such a life.

“That doesn’t sound so complicated,” he says outwardly. “Around how many years would it take you to save up for it?”

Junmyeon finishes securing the bandage and straightens up in thought. “Originally it would have taken me ten years, but with your patronage it’ll probably only take a year or two.”

Chanyeol scoffs at the doctor’s cheeky grin, but his lips melt into an exasperated smile.

“What about you?” Junmyeon asks. “What’s your retirement dream?”

The answer does not come as easily as Chanyeol thought it would. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I don’t have a specific plan, but… I don’t plan on doing this forever.”

“You shouldn’t live like that,” the doctor tells him. “Not dreaming, I mean. They’re powerful stuff, for when life gets too tiring. Gives you something to hold on to.”

“ _I_ wanna go live in Los Angeles,” Sehun pipes in, reminding the two that they weren’t alone. “’M gonna buy myself one of those cars—the ones that have their roofs disappear (“A convertible, Sehunnie,” Junmyeon smiles affectionately.). Yeah! A convertible. And I’ll drive through all those roads with the roof down and just let myself get a tan from all that sunlight. Did you know you can drive for hours and hours and hours in America, hyung? And you can be in a different state each time…”

Later, when Junmyeon falls asleep yet again on his armchair, Chanyeol finds himself automatically searching for a blanket. He stares at the sleeping form, then at the blanket and pillow in his hand. He wonders when he got so soft.

This wasn’t right, this… _domesticity_. This was dangerous, even. He thinks of his gun, sitting forgotten in his coat pocket.

He could end it now, he could kill his person and end him before he could further destroy Chanyeol.

It would be so easy. But even that momentary thought made him nauseous.

He lifts Junmyeon’s head instead, sliding the pillow underneath and pulling the blanket to cover up to the doctor’s cheeks.

“I hate you,” he whispers as he caresses Junmyeon’s hair.

“You really should stop getting yourself hurt like this,” Junmyeon scolds as he cleans a cut on Chanyeol’s arm. “You’ll worry the people around you.”

“If anything, my friends will probably laugh at me for getting wounded,” Chanyeol scoffs. “We run bets on each other. Whoever gets hurt within the week has to pay everyone else a hundred thousand won. Each.”

“That’s messed up,” Junmyeon laughs. “What about your parents, then? I bet you give them massive frights whenever you come see them all bandaged up like this.”

Chanyeol sighs. “My mom was a miserable drunk. My dad was living on crack. Not exactly the type to worry about their son getting hurt and all that.”

Junmyeon looks up at him in poorly concealed shock. He blinks, and then looks back down on and silently continues dressing the gangster’s wound.

“Did they… did they make you…?”

“Did they make me a thug?” Chanyeol laughs at the notion. “Oh no, this was all me. Those deadbeat parents sold me to a mobster when I was eight so they could continue their expensive lifestyle. They told the guy I was worth a lot, fresh organs and all that,” Chanyeol spits. “They wanted me butchered, just so they could buy booze and drugs.”

A gasp. A hand lays itself on top of his, soft and gentle and _warm_. So warm that it made Chanyeol’s throat hurt.

“I was taken into this dark room, and I knew then that I was gonna die. But I wasn’t gonna go down easy. I managed to grab my captors’ knife and slice him with it before they cut me open.” The gangster takes a shuddering breath. “Their leader laughed right then, and told me he could use kids like me. He let me live, and trained me to steal, to maim, to kill. I got paid in meals, because I was a rat who had a debt to pay. I was beaten to an inch of my life every time I made a mistake. I killed those bastards when I was seventeen and I haven’t allowed anyone to boss me around eversince.”

He glares at Junmyeon then, as if challenging him. But the doctor only squeezes Chanyeol’s hand harder.

“You didn’t deserve any of that,” he whispers.

Chanyeol stares at the doctor. “Are you serious right now.”

“What?” he had the audacity to look confused.

“What’s not clicking to you?” Chanyeol hisses, snatching his hand back. “I just told you I’m a goddamn _murderer_. And here you are holding my hand like I’m some kind of saint.”

“Well _I’m_ a doctor who keeps helping murderers,” Junmyeon shrugs. “Because they give me money and if I have money it means I get to eat and my mom gets to live longer. It’s not exactly my place to judge you, don’t you think?”

With a sigh, the doctor secures the end of the bandage and gives it a final pat.

“You did well surviving, Chanyeol-ah,” he murmurs. “And I’m really glad you did.”

It wasn’t hard for Chanyeol’s friends to start trusting Junmyeon. He had a way with people, had the ability to make anyone drop their guard. Perhaps it was from being saved from the brink of death, from being cared for when one was feeling horrible. Perhaps it was from the easygoing way he interacted with them all, the welcoming smiles that greeted them whenever they entered the small clinic, as if they were normal, everyday clients and not hoodlums with blood of several people on their hands.

Sehun had liked him from the beginning, eyes lighting up whenever Chanyeol mentioned a need to go to the doctor. But for the others… It was not long before Kai was visiting the clinic every other day, claiming that Junmyeon’s tv was more compatible with his gaming console. D.O. would often tag along, filling the upstairs home with various smells as he cooked and packed dozens of meals for the doctor, after discovering that Junmyeon tended to subsist on instant food. Even Xiumin, Chanyeol’s stoic tactician, developed the habit of dropping by for a cup of tea and small talk.

One night sees them all huddled in Junmyeon’s living room, the small space resulting in mini fights that would ensue due to someone accidentally elbowing another, or stepping on someone’s toes while they attempted to walk to the bathroom.

Most of them don’t even make it to the latter half of the movie, dozing off where they were. Junmyeon pulls out all the blankets and pillows from his linen closet and covers them all, nudging at them gently to adjust their positions so they wouldn’t wake up with stiff necks.

Chanyeol himself is wide awake, standing off to the corner after being shooed away to let Sehun lie comfortably on the couch.

“What are we all doing,” Baekhyun asks beside him.

Chanyeol spares him a glance, knowing precisely what his friend meant but choosing not to answer. Bakehyun has always been the most perceptive one, which was a stark contrast to his outgoing, goofy personality. That was the biggest reason why he was Chanyeol’s right hand man.

“We’re putting him in danger just by being here,” Baekhyun goes on. “Ordinary people don’t mix well with the mob life.”

“Knowing that didn’t stop you from going shopping with him last week.”

Baekhyun lets out a frustrated sigh. “That’s exactly what I mean! I shouldn’t be hanging out with him, none of us should be! For fuck’s sake, we all just dropped a scumbag into the ocean this afternoon, what are we doing watching movies in this man’s living room like we’re all some kind of happy family,” he hisses.

Chanyeol does not answer.

“ _I_ know why,” his friend declares. “He’s given us a place to be comfortable in, a place where we can let our guards down. A fucking _home_.”

“And what’s so bad about that?” Chanyeol finds himself blurting out.

It’s almost frightening, the speed at which Baekhyun steps infront of him, a murderous glint in his eyes.

“What’s bad about it, leader, is people like us don’t get to enjoy things like that. We don’t get to have homes. Not without a price. And sometimes, it’s not us who have to pay for it.”

He throws a meaningful glance towards Junmyeon, and a chill goes down Chanyeol’s spine.

“It’ll be fine,” Chanyeol dismisses him. “I won’t let that happen.”

Baekhyun only sighs. “You’re a goddamn fool.”

Junmyeon takes notice of them. He smiles at Chanyeol, tilting his head questioningly.

The taller only gives him a reassuring shake of his head.

Baekhyun was right. Chanyeol was a fool.

For the small gangs like Chanyeol’s, nothing was ever constant.

Sometimes one group would pop out, followed by another in a month. Sometimes three would dissolve after a war, never to be heard from again. The numbers were always changing. Only the strong remained.

And Chanyeol—Chanyeol was strong.

He led a group of seven men and seven men only. It was completely unheard of in the mafia, to have such a small gang. But Chanyeol believed in quality over quantity. And he was never good at trusting people, anyway.

The Seven were a group with members handpicked by Chanyeol himself. Kai and Sehun, he picked them right off the street. D.O. and Xiumin had been from another gang, potential wasting away until Chanyeol recruited them. As for Chen and Baekhyun, they were friends he’d made along the way.

They specialized in assassinations, but gangs were gangs and even The Seven would find themselves in turf wars, kidnappings and extortions from time to time.

It had taken years, but they had slowly built up their reputation and eked out their own territory in Seoul. It was just a small part of the city, but it was theirs. It had been theirs for three years now.

Until drug lord Choi Jaeseok started wanting it for himself.

Chanyeol should have known that good things never last for him.

He should have listened to Baekhyun.

The end of the fleeting quietude came abruptly one day.

It was only six words long.

From: _Doc_

Chanyeol. Don’t come to the clinic

“Where is he.”

Chanyeol’s voice is cold, cutting the air like knife. It made everyone in the room steel themselves by instinct—all of them feeling the murderous intent from those three words alone.

The man sitting before Chanyeol shows no fear, however, and even manages a smirk.

“Not telling.”

Chanyeol kicks him in the gut.

“I said, _where_ is he.”

“You shouldn’t worry so much, Park,” the man laughs as soon as he gets his breath back. “Your sweet doctor will come back to you eventually. I made sure to give my guys _specific_ instructions that he be returned to you.” A menacing grin. “Tomorrow, they’ll give you back his fingers. Next they’ll give you back his arms. They’ll send him back to you little by little, saving his pretty head for last. I bet it won’t be that pretty by then, though. It would be so rot—“

The man’s sentence ends in a shriek as Chanyeol drives a knife through his palm.

“Is that so,” the gangster asks nonchalantly. He twists the knife, earning another wail from the man. “Should we make this a competition, then? For every part of Junmyeon they send me, I’ll send them back a head. Now, whether that first head will be your sister’s or your father’s, you get to decide. I can even give you more options than that, if you want.”

The man’s eyes widen in horror. No, it couldn’t be.

“Really, Jaeseok. You should beef up the security in your house a little.” Chanyeol clicks his tongue as he straightens up and starts walking to the men at the corners of the room.

He takes a smartphone from Chen.

“With your gall, I’d thought you’d at least taken precautions to protect what’s yours,” the gangster continues. “But you probably thought no one would dare, didn’t you? Thought that you were invincible.”

He holds the smartphone with one hand, the other he uses to swipe leisurely at the screen. He seems to find what he’s looking for. He goes to stand beside the chair Jaeseok was bound to, and bends down to show the phone to the man, much like how students would look at each other’s phone in class.

Jaeseok gasps at the first picture.

“Don’t worry, your sister is fine,” Chanyeol assures him in a light tone. “I’m not that cruel, you know? I’ll even give her an easy death for you if you choose her to go first. Poor thing was so terrified when my guys came. I heard she’s the top of her class, such a shame.”

Chanyeol swipes to the next picture.

“Your uncle! Oh, I didn’t know we managed to get him too. Nice, Xiumin-hyung,” he compliments offhandedly. A reply comes in the form of a scoff.

Chanyeol shows picture after picture, each one containing various members of Jaeseok’s family.

Another picture. This time Jaeseok audibly growls, his body pulling at the binds at his hands and feet.

“Park, you son of a bitch—“

“Getting foul-mouthed now, are we? And here I thought you were having fun!”

Chanyeol zooms in on the picture for Jaeseok, showing him every detail of his wife.

“You know, I didn’t want to take her,” he tells him in a regretful voice as the captive kept squirming against his bindings in agitation. “I told you, I’m not a cruel man. She’s an innocent, she was just unlucky enough to get married to a piece of shit like you. Killing her would leave a bad taste in my mouth, but you didn’t give me much of a choice. You went after one of mine, and you should have known I wouldn’t just sit by. I always pay back threefold, you know that.”

Chanyeol straightens up again, and leaves Jaeseok’s side to stand infront of him. “I’ve got every single one of your family. Don’t bother calling your men back at your house—they’re all dead. I got your friends, too, just for the heck of it. All of your houses are burning down as we speak, your warehouses are about to follow. But you can save your loved ones at least. I’m pretty generous, don’t you think? Now—“ the gangster wrenches the knife out of Jaeseok’s palm and drives it back in. The man howls in pain.

“It all depends on how you answer my question,” Chanyeol says. “Where is he.”

Chanyeol stares up at the light box sign hanging by the clinic’s entrance. _Happy Pasture Clinic._ Such a tacky name.

The sheet of the light box must have been white, once. But now it was just a sad shade of gray with patches of black where the bulbs must have burned through. The sign was hardly legible from afar, a sorry-looking thing in an equally pitiful neighborhood.

But it had a glow to it, a coziness. Like a rest stop. Not exactly a happy pasture, but…like a patch of dandelion on the sidewalk.

It’s probably what inspires the color that Chanyeol decides on, when he buys a new sign.

He has it installed on one of Junmyeon’s rare days off, those days where the doctor slept through the entire day. He wakes him up just after sunset, the sun dimming and giving way to an indigo sky.

He stands by the doctor’s bed, inhaling the sight of him curled up under the thick carrot-print blanket. Junmyeon’s lower lip juts out in a pout, his eyebrows bunched in a frown. Chanyeol smiles and wonders who it was that was stressing dream-Junmyeon out.

He gives the doctor a gentle shake, urging him to wake up.

He doesn’t talk at all when Junmyeon sleepily asks him what he was there for, only wordlessly pulls the doctor along until they were outside.

“Chanyeol, would you at least let me get changed— _Oh.”_

Junmyeon has seen the sign. _Happy Pasture Clinic_ , it says in its new green sheet, its light almost blinding from how bright it was. The doctor’s mouth gapes, his eyes widening both in surprise and awe.

He looks at Chanyeol, then back up at the sign, lips opening and closing but unable to utter anything.

“I, uh, thought you needed a new sign,” the gangster says sheepishly, hand coming up to rub the back of his neck.

He barely registers how a smaller hand hooks onto his neck, pulling him down.

Chanyeol’s gasp is muffled by the lips that crashes into his, the kiss made slightly wet by the doctor’s tears.

The softness of the mouth against his instantly makes Chanyeol yield, arms finding their way around the smaller figure, pressing it tighter against him. He deepens the kiss, pulling Junmyeon closer and lets himself be lost in the all-consuming warmth.

“So I’m guessing you like the sign a lot,” Chanyeol teases him later, when Junmyeon has stopped crying and they’re both back inside the doctor’s bedroom.

“And I’m guessing you like me a lot,” the doctor mocks back.

The taller does not deny it.

And when Junmyeon pulls him into the bed with him, he doesn’t stop him either.

“He’s at that market building in Dongdaemun,”Jaeseok concedes. “The one at the plaza.”

Chanyeol takes hold of his knife, positioning it on the captive’s right thumb before slowly pressing down. “You don’t have a building in Dongdaemun. Don’t lie to me.”

“It’s not mine!” Jaeseok shrieks, as the knife reaches his bone. “It’s Kang’s! It’s Kang’s, I took him there—I knew you would look at all of mine. _Please._ He’s there, he’s there…”

Chanyeol takes the pressure off the finger and Jaeseok sobs in relief.

“It’s quite a big building,” Chen calls out from somewhere in the room, no doubt already knowing exactly which building the captive meant. “You’re gonna have to be more specific than that.”

Jaeseok hesitates. Chanyeol growls and grips the knife threateningly.

“The basement, the basement!” Jaeseok yells in fright. “He’s down there with ten of my guys. Please…”

Satisfied, Chanyeol straightens up. He tries to hide the tremble in his hands, his knees. Plaza. Dongdaemun. Basement. Junmyeon.

 _Junmyeon._ He tried not to imagine what state the doctor must be in now, tried not to think of how much pain he’s probably been put through. Chanyeol grits his teeth and forces himself to not give in to the terror right then.

 _I’m coming to get you,_ he whispers in his head. _Wait for me and please be safe pleasebesafepleasebesafepleasepleasepleaseplease_

Outwardly he says, “Kai.”

“Gladly,” comes the answer.

Kai steps out from the shadows, with a dangerous smile on his face and a red gallon in hand.

Jaeseok’s eyes widen in horror. “W-Wait! I told you the truth, I told you where he is,” he wails as he pulls against his bindings. “Keep your end of the bargain!”

“I said I’d spare your family,” Chanyeol answers in a cold voice. “I never said anything about sparing you.”

The leader steps away just as Kai begins pouring gas on Jaeseok. “Chen, Baekhyun, Xiumin. With me,” he instructs.

“Junmyeon-hyung is our friend, too,” Sehun protests, immediately falling into step behind his leader. “Let us all come with you.”

And Chanyeol is too nauseous to argue, too agitated to even stop his friends as they all crowd into the car with him.

The smell of gasoline makes Chanyeol’s nose sting, and the car drives off just as the building explodes, Jaeseok’s screams dying off into the night.

Chanyeol takes out his trusty beretta from his coat pocket, idly caressing the barrel.

“I’ll lead, you all cover for me,” he says in a voice that does not allow for arguments. “I will kill them all myself.”

They reach the building, and it takes all of Chanyeol’s reserve to not go running into the darkness. He has to stay rational, he has to keep his head if he wanted to get all of them out of this alive.

It’s almost graceful, the way Chanyeol navigates his way in the building. He does not need to look to make sure that his friends have slunk into their own chosen corners, eyes open and guns at the ready. But there was hardly any need for them, as their leader has gone deep into his hunting mode—his efficient killer persona that has made him so famous in the mafia.

He picks off the enemies one by one, all shot only once in the chest. He makes sure the shot is fatal, but not lethal enough to provide an easy death.

No, they won’t get off that easily. They will all die in pain, drowning in their own blood as it slowly filled their lungs.

Some manage to take a shot at him, but Chanyeol barely takes notice of the bullets that tear into his suit and graze his flesh, only focused on moving forward. He grunts as a particularly lucky shot to his shoulder makes him stumble.

“Hyung!” he hears Sehun cry.

Chanyeol ignores him, gritting his teeth as the pays back the bastard with three of his own bullets.

He mustn’t stop, he couldn’t stop. Not until—

He stumbles into a doorway and he finally sees him.

There he was.

His dandelion.

He’s sitting on a chair, slumped the way he always was on his own armchair back home. If it weren’t for the ropes on his limbs, his torn clothes and the bruises on his face, Chanyeol would have thought that Junmyeon was just sleeping.

The doctor seems to sense his presence, and his eyes open. He blinks dazedly, until his gaze falls on Chanyeol. His mouth curls into one of those smiles, the ones he gave Chanyeol whenever the gangster came to him, the ones that welcomed him home. His lips part into a word.

“Chan—“

A shot rings through the air, and Junmyeon’s voice is cut off with a choke.

A crimson spot appears on the doctor’s chest, and like a bud it blossoms across his sweater.

The cry that Chanyeol lets out is ugly, and all he can think is _JunmyeonJunmyeonJunmyeon_ as he screams in agony.

He snarls in fury, pumping all the figures in the room with bullets as he makes his way to Junmyeon.

He finally reaches him, and his gun drops on the floor, the thud ringing through the room with finality.

It was finally quiet now.

Junmyeon only smiles at him as Chanyeol unties him from the chair and carries him out in his arms.

“What took you so long,” he asks weakly. “My sweater is all ruined because of you.”

Chanyeol swallows his sob as he sits them both in the car.

He hears Chen sniffle as he turned the engine on. He’d seen Junmyeon’s wound. They all had. They knew what it meant.

Chanyeol lifts Junmyeon closer to him, inhaling the smell of coconuts from the doctor’s hair. The familiar scent is mixed with the smell of gunpowder and blood. But it was there. Still there.

“Remember when you asked me what my dream was?” he asks.

Junmyeon nods, the small action barely registered by Chanyeol’s chest.

“Well, I’ve thought about it,” the gangster tells him. “And I think I know what I want now. I wanna live on an island, those quiet ones with not more than a thousand people in it. And I’d live next door to this pretty doctor and his mom. I’d talk to the doctor’s mom everyday so she won’t get lonely. I’d visit the pretty doctor every morning and help him charm grumpy old grandfathers into taking their medicine. And in the afternoon we’ll walk around the island together, and on the next day we’ll do it all over again. We’ll live a boring old life together. And then we’ll die peacefully in our sleep when we’re both wrinkled and gray.”

“That’s a nice dream,” Junmyeon says, his voice barely a whisper.

“But Junmyeon,” Chanyeol urges, tears falling freely now. “The doctor has to be there, see? He has to be there so my dream can come true. So you have to stay alive, okay? Stay with me, Junmyeon.”

“You haven’t paid me for Sehun’s surgery yet,” the doctor informs him. “I can’t die without collecting my pay, I’d turn into a vengeful spirit.”

Chanyeol laughs, but it turns into sobs as he pulls Junmyeon close.

As wretched as Chanyeol felt, as much as he wanted to die, he lived.

The years went by, his eyes staying lifeless through most of it.

He buys the building with Junmyeon’s clinic.

_Happy Pasture Clinic_ stays closed.

Two Years Later

Chanyeol stumbles through the door, his hand clutching at his abdomen. The blood seeps through his fingers, but he hardly pays his wound any mind. The end was near now.

He climbs up the stairs, suspiciously shining and dust-free. The others have been sneaking in here again. But the cleanliness was definitely Xiumin’s work.

He smiles in affection as he makes his way up. He hoped they’d choose Xiumin as the leader after him. He’d make a great leader, Chanyeol was sure of it.

The gangster opens the door to the second floor, and he tears up at the nostalgic smell. He wonders how it still smells like Junmyeon even after so long.

He wants to go to the living room, wants to curl up in the couch like he used to. But all his legs could manage was the kitchen.

He pulls a chair and plops down on it, before slumping on the dining table.

“I’m home,” he whispers to the house.

And it’s probably the blood loss, but he feels a warmth blanket him from behind. It felt like an embrace, and Chanyeol accepts the thought. He wants it to be an embrace.

He can almost imagine the soft breath on his neck, the weak scent of coconuts, the ticklish fibers from a knit sweater.

_What took you so long_ , he thinks someone says.

“I didn’t know how to reach you,” Chanyeol confesses. “I wanted to end it, but I knew you wouldn’t have wanted that. So I lived. Took care of the others.”

_You’re all banged up again._

“I know, but it’s the last time, I promise. And you’ll patch me up real nice, right?”

_Only if you finally pay me back for Sehun’s surgery._

Chanyeol’s smile turns into a wince. “It’s cold, Junmyeon...”

And it’s probably still the blood loss, the desperate attempt of his brain to end this painlessly for him—but a steaming cup appears before the gangster’s eyes. He gratefully takes the cup in his hands, and takes a sip.

“This is too damn sweet,” he complains. But the smile on his lips threatens to tear his face in half.

His eyes are closing, and his arms fold into a pillow for his head. His lips curl into a satisfied smile and he sighs in contentment.

Two days after Junmyeon died, Chanyeol purchased a house in Eocheongdo. He takes Junmyeon’s mother out of the hospital and carefully transports her there.

She spends the last of her days surrounded by eight sons.

After Junmyeon’s mother dies, life goes back to normal.

Almost.

They want to leave the mob world for good, but things needed settling. The only real way to leave was to die, and they had planned to fake their own deaths.

Loose ends were taken care of, jobs were accepted for funds.

It is in this process that Chanyeol is mortally wounded. It was probably an old enemy, but he had too many of those to know exactly who it was.

Xiumin is made leader.

They all complete their last job together, and they let their old identities die.

Xiumin buys a large house in LA, one with enough rooms for all of them.

Lay enrolls to medical school.

Kai and Baekhyun buy houses once they settled down with families of their own, but they buy ones in the same neighborhood as the others.

Sehun gets his convertible, and he spends every weekend driving with the roof down. He always made sure that the backseats were free. They were reserved for his favorite hyungs.

Strangely, the seats are always empty except for a frail stethoscope and an old beretta.

**Author's Note:**

> scream at me in the comments <3
> 
> Come talk to me on [Twitter!](https://twitter.com/suhosfabtwin)  
> also if you wanna buy me coffee... [ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/amyeonhaseyo)


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